Solid-state memory, such as flash memory, is being used in an ever-increasing number of memory devices. The ease with which digital data can be written and rewritten, together with the non-volatile nature of the memory, makes these memory devices appealing for a large number of applications. When using these memory devices to store highly sensitive data, such as in military applications, additional security issues must be considered.
For example, when using a memory device to store sensitive data, it may become necessary to prevent further access to the stored digital data. Simply erasing the data stored in the memory device may not guarantee that the data is beyond retrieval from the memory circuits. In order to ensure that the data is no longer accessible, a destructive purge of the memory circuits is necessary to damage the memory circuits beyond repair.
Conventional systems have been developed to perform a destructive purge of a memory device by applying a large amount of charge, such as through the discharge of a capacitor, into the memory circuits. However, these conventional systems have several drawbacks. One drawback is that these conventional systems typically require a large capacitor, for example greater than 5,000 μF. A capacitor of this size requires significant space on the device board. Another drawback is that capacitor-based purge systems typically must be modified and reconfigured to work with different types of memory chips and are not easily scalable for different flash memory configurations.